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On Thor’s Hammer, Rain, and Disability

Always someone in the rain with a hammer. That’s working life. And the wind, which has no politics, adds its blank cruelty. No theory can explain this, though Carl Jung tried. His essay on Job is still the greatest analysis of unjustified suffering and the uncaring cosmos. But a man or woman, even a child, must wave a hammer in rain. And the disabled wave two hammers. In this way, I’ve always thought of the disabled, my friends, as “Thor”—my pal Bill with his wheelchair has at least two hammers. My friend X who is blind and angry has five or six hammers. And they move about in rain. Navigate with insistent and pure energies. Thor’s hammer, which was made by the dwarves, according to Snorri, has the lightning on the inside where it truly counts.